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The Institute of Race Relations an anti racist think tank has published a report that demonstrates that since the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence on the 22nd April 1993 an average of 5 people a year have been killed as consequence of extreme violent racism.

The report has identified that Muslim taxi drivers are at particular risk in addition to others who work alone at night. What is clear from this report is that there remain areas in the UK that are unsafe for Black Britain’s to either live or work.

These racist murders are unique in another important aspect and that is they are virtually ignored by the mainstream media attracting little if any coverage.

Along with politicians the media have conspired to ensure that the scourge of extreme and violent racism no longer features as a media or political priority.

The huge right wing backlash black communities have endured since 9/11 attacks is best characterised as a full scale ideological attack on the principle’s of multiculturalism denigrating anti racism as incompatible with “British values“ . The result is that the issue of race has all but disappeared from the political and news agenda.

The challenge for black communities in the context of rising levels of racist and religious attacks particularly those targetting Muslim communities will be to return to the campaigning agenda that so successfully highlighted racist attacks during the 1990’s.